|
|
|
Issue Sixteen
"Bell, Book and Candle - Part 3" |
Last Issue: The Trenchcoats split up, hoping to get to the trio of mystical artifacts before the Cult of the Curse. Unfortunately, things went wrong and both groups were attacked as soon as they discovered any hint of the artifacts.
Meanwhile, the astral form of Rose Psychic (partner to Dr. Occult) has stumbled upon the Cult’s stronghold in New York. That didn’t go as planned either...
Rose was angry. She’d been trying so hard to find some clues about the Cult of the Curse. Show the others that she wasn’t just ‘Richard’s sidekick’, but his partner, and an equeal member of their little boys club.
Instead, she was now stuck in the roll of damsel, waiting to be rescued.
Rose focused on her anger. Anger at herself and anger at the rest of the Trenchcoats, for how they made her feel. Rose knew if she let go of her anger long enough, to think about her present situation, she’d be too frightened to act.
She and Richard were two souls joined together, as part of a spell that alowed only one of them to exist on the physical plain at a time. It had put a kink in their budding romance, to be sure. While Richard Occult was out and about, with his fellow mystics, Rose’s astral form had flown about the city. A ghostly image scouting the city.
So, nobody should have been able to see or talk to her.They sure, as hell, shouldn’t have been able to trap her in a sphere of magical energy, shrink her down to the size of a Barbie doll and stick her on a shelf in their secret headquarters, hidden underneath an abandoned asylum.
Rose sat indian style and closed her eyes. She let her mystical energies flow along the surface of the bubble, searching for any crack, seam or flaw. None of that damsel, waiting to get rescued stuff for her.
Rose hoped Richard the others were having better luck than she was, on the off-chance that her daring escape plan didn’t succed.
Rook’s Books, Greenwich Village, New York...
John Constantine’s body lay sprawled on the floor of the bookstore, but his mind was miles and years away.
Newcastle, a grey drizzly morning, an exorcism gone horribly wrong and the face of the little girl he’d promised to keep safe. The expression on her face was the same one he saw on the nights when sleep wouldn’t come and there wasn’t near enough liquor in the bottle. The look on her face, just seconds before the gates of Hell slammed shut, leaving John Constatine safe and alone on the outside.
“I’m sorry,” Constantine muttered, as a tear trickled down his face. “So, goddamned ... sorry... should’ve ... held ... on... sorry...”
He stretched out his hand across the floor, hoping this time he’d reach her before the gates closed. Like a hundred times before, the gates clanged shut and John Constantine curled up into a ball, pounding on the floor, till his knuckles bled.
Two men, dressed in rags, stepped over him, and edged around the bookstore counter. They slipped past the Phantom Stranger, who stood, statue-still, his shadowed eyes staring at something in the distance only he could see.
Both of the Trenchcoats had a snake, made of grimey smoke, coiled around them. Their red eyes glistened in ecstacy as they feed off the two mystics misery.
The intruders scooped up the pile of ash that the Stranger had been sifting through, and then grabbed the papers off the counter, that Constantine had found.
As the duo made their way out of the shop, the smokey serpants drifted away from the two occult investigators and followed their masters, out into the night.
As the closed the door behind them, John Constantine blinked his eyes and climbed shakily to his feet.
“Bah... bastards...” he muttered, holding onto the counter, to stay upright. “When I ... get my hands on...”
“Steady, John Constantine,” The Phantom Stranger said, helping the Englishman to stay on his feet. “This is not a time for anger...”
“The hell it isn’t!” Constatine snapped, yanking his arm back. “First smart thing I’ve done since hooking up with you lot. I am good and goddamned, sodding-well angry and it has got me doing the one thing we shoulda been doing from the get go!”
“Which is?”
“Thinking. We haven’t thought this through at goddamn all,” Constantine muttered, as he knelt down to peer at the baseboard of the counter. “We went into this thinking the Cult of the Curse was still just a bunch of laughable berks. Give me a hand here.”
The Stranger knelt down and ran a gloved hand across the runes carved into the baseboard. They briefly glowed white. As the light faded, the compartment hidden in the paneling opened with a click.
“Show off,” Constantine grumbled, reaching inside. He pulled out a small cloth bag, tied with a bit of string, a polished white stone and a rolled up scroll.
“Bastard had it all this time,” The Englishman muttered, peering at the scroll. “He let Tala think I had it, that time... well, when Jimmy Rook gets out of that hospital, I’m gonna put him back in it...”
“We have other matters to see to, John Constantine,” The Stranger interupted, taking the scroll from his associate. He then stood. “Come. We must see if the others have returned.
“Hope they’ve got some good news,” Constntine said, pocketing the white stone as he followed.
They didn’t and John took it as well as expected.
“Stupid, useless shower of bastards...! ” he fumed, pacing around Dr. Occult’s office.
Mister E sat behind Occult’s desk, showing as much reaction to the Englishman’s rant as the beach does to a wave. The Stranger stood by the door. Dr. Occult was slumped on the much-abused sofa in the corner. He’d looked like a puppet with the strings cut, when he and Mister E arrived. Since the theft of the bell, he’d paid scant attention to the rest of the world, hunched up in his overcoat, occasionally muttering to himself.
“We walked right into it,” Constatine said, barely pausing for breath, lest it interupt the flow of his rant. “Sort of thing you’d expect from Sargon or Faust’s brat, not the creme of the sodding mystical crop!”
He glared at the others.
“Your frustration is understandable,” The Stranger said. “but how were we to have known the Cult had gained such power...?”
“We should have know!” Constatine snapped. “We should have put some thought into it. Why would a bunch of sad cases like the Cult of the Curse tackle a job like this, eh!? Instead of figuring out why/where they’d get the power to pull something, like this off, we went about things, thinking they were delusional and we’d sort them out before dinner.”
“I would prefer you not use that word,” Mister E commented.
“What?” John said, turing towards him. “Dinner? Or maybe you’re thinking of the other ‘D’ word? Prefer ‘crazy’ then, would ya? ‘Unhinged’? ”
The grip on E’s cane tightened and he turned his blind eyes toward the Englishman.
“I will not have those words spoken in my prescence.” He said, in a dangerously quiet tone.
“Gonna be tough when we’re dealing with the Cult of the Curse. It’s their stock in trade, insanity. They think it’s not a sickness, but the minds way of becoming aware of the divine. Seeing the big, friggin, cosmic picture and tapping into it. They aren’t loonies, they’re mystics. Just like us.”
“Not like us!” E snapped. “They are tainted...!”
“And we aren’t? We’re as bent a bunch as ever walked this earth, and the Cult knew how to grab hold of the crazy in each of us and give it a twist.”
Dr. Occult leaned forward slightly, hugging himself. His muttering was becoming almost a chant.
Mister E shook his head in angry denial.
“He is right,” The Stranger said, quietly.
“Too right I am! Look at us! Occult and Rose, all fused together. Always feeling the others prescence, but never being in the same place, at the same time. Forty years of sexual frustration will do a number on anyone’s head.”
All three glanced in Occult’s direction. He was slumped over, lying on his side, eyes shut tight, a fine sheer of persperation on his face.
“Tell me he’s okay.” Constantine muttered, begining to pace again. “The Stranger passed on choosing sides, long time ago, and is now stuck forever in the middle. You wanna tell me there are no regrets there? That you never lie awake at night playing the ‘what if I’d...?’ game?”
The Englishman turned to look at the Stranger, who merely nodded in reply.
“I give you points for honesty, mate. Then we got E...”
“I will not be judged...” Mister E said, icily. “What of you, John Constatine? You are so quick to catergorize us...”
“Oh, I know just how thoroughly screwed up I am. You don’t get nine months of shock thearpy in Newcastle by winning a radio contest.” He smirked at Mister E, but anger shown in his eyes. “Can you get him to stop whimpering like that?!”
Constatine glared at Dr. Occult. The Phantom Stranger went over and sat on the couch. He placed a glove hand on the stricken mystic’s forehead.
“If you can’t quiet him down, have him bring Rose back.” Constatine said. “I could use somebody sensible to talk to.”
“Rose is gone,” The Stranger said with a puzzled frown. “That is the nature of Occult’s affliction.”
“What do you mean ... gone?” Constatine asked.” She can’t be gone! She and Richard are linked.”
“The link still exisits,” The Stranger explained. “but I cannot feel Rose Psychic’s prescence. “
“Occult mentioned something about sending... her out,” Mister E said. “Some form of astral projection, I would guess.”
“And if somebody got ahold of Rose’s astral form...” Constatine muttered, blowing out smoke.
“They could strike at Occult, through her,” The Stranger finished.
“The Cult of the Curse?” E asked.
“Too much of a coincedence, it happening right now, to be anybody else,” Constatine replied, too deep in thought to remember to be sarcastic to E. “Bloody Hell...!”
“They knew we were in the city,” E said. “They must have.”
“Would explain how they were ready for us,” Constatine replied. He stabbed out his ciggeratte on the corner of Occult’s desk and then sat on a nearby straightbacked, wooden chair. “We are losing control of it. Need a bloody minute to think...” He ran a hand through his touseled hair and sighed.
“That may well be their plan,” The Stranger said. “They know enough about each of us to keep us off balance. I sense that time is of the escence. The Cult is hoping we will not have the time to regroup, and so, stay one step ahead of us.”
“Agreed,” Mister E said. “We cannot wait for their next move. We must take the fight to them. “
“All well and good,” Constatine muttered. “but we know shitte all about what the Cult’s up to and even less idea where they’re huddled up.”
“I think,” The Stranger said, a gloved hand thoughtfully rubbing at his chin. “They may have overplayed their hand and given us a way to find them.”
“Did I turn two pages at once?”Constatine asked. “When did that happen?”
“The link between Rose and Richard has not been severed,” The Stranger explained. “It is damaged, but still there.”
“And we can use it to find the ...woman,” E said, nodding. “Then we would know where to strike.”
“I can attend to that,” The Stranger said, taking the scroll out of his overcoat pocket. “We still have the other two artifacts to find and having found this questing map at James Rook’s shop we may be able to find them first.”
“If the Cult’s got the Bell, then they can use it to find out where the other two are,” Constatine said, standing up.
“If they don’t have them already.” E said.
I think it’s time to start shaking people down,” Constatine muttered. “E, how’d you like to help me smite some sinners?”
“Point me to them,” Mister E said, standing up.
“I will see to Richard Occult,” The Stranger said.
It was a night that shook the occult community of New York, and left the NYPD baffled, for years. Informants, minor mystics and asorted creatures of the night were bullied, threatened and beaten for any and all information concerning the Cult of the Curse. Constantine had taken a great deal of satisfaction working over that possesed ventriliquist Dummy. Those things had always given him the creeps. Mister E had seemed to have taken a certain petty, yet violently energitic zeal in interogating several members of the cult of the Blood Red Moon. They’d come across them in a SoHo coffee shop. Constantine made a mental note to ask what that was all about. Matter Master had been more than happy to rat out any and all of his fellow criminal mystics. Both John and E were skeptical of his information. After all, who would just the judgement of anyone that thought it was really clever to wear one of those pointed wizard’s hats.
The trail of battered mystics and monsters lead them back to Greenwich Village, where the two Trenchcoats seperated, E to have words with a ghost of his aquaintance, while Constatine went to have his fortune told.
“Business must be good, Xan,” He muttered, past his newly lit cigeratte. He’d put out his last one in the eye of a zombie in Brooklyn. “Lots more candles and that new trinket looks like a fairy tear.” The pendant in question that had caught Constatine’s eye, by coincedence happened to be decorating the raven-haired woman’s generous cleavage. Not that much of Constatine’s interest was focused on her jewlery.
“You walk a dark path, John,” Madam Xanadu said, ignoring her visitor’s leer and studying the tarot cards she had laid out. Or perhaps, it was said to warn the Englishman that his gaze wasn’t appreciated.
“What else is new?”
“This is,” She replied. “The Death card. It talks of the future but it’s placement in this reading is unusual.”
“How so, luv?” He asked, now all business. “Is it for me or someone I know?”
“Neither, I believe, or possibly both. These cards indicate struggle, while this matching deals with lovers united. Casting it’s shadow over all of this, yet not touching the others, is the Death card. Very odd.”
“Too right. Those, that are matched up with my ‘struggle’ are aligned with the death card, almost like...”
“The shadow of Death that hangs over you blocks any glimpse of the coming future,” Xanadu murmmered, a tremor of concern creeping into her, usually sensual and detached, voice.
“Or a death so big, there’s no future for you to read,” Constatine added, worried despite himself. “Couldn’t be anything easy, now could it?”
“It rarely is with you, John,” Xanadu said, raising her eyes from the cards and focusing on her guest. One corner of her mouth went up in a sly smile.
“So, since the cards hint this may be the last time we meet,” Constatine said, with a smirk. “Maybe you and I should take advantadge of this opportunity...? ”
That was as far as his suggestion got before a white-gloved hand came to rest on the Englishman’s shoulder.
“We have found the Cult of the Curse,” The Phantom Stranger said. “We must go.”
“Well, we better shake a leg, cause according to the cards, it’s all about to go pear-shaped,” Constatine said with a sigh. He shrugged apologetically at Madam Xanadu. Her smiled reply was a mix of tolerance, tinged with affection.
“Then it is lucky that we four are adept at the unshaping of pears,” The Stranger replied, dryly.
“Yeah, well, let’s go set the bastards straight,” Constatine said, standing up. He took a last puff of his cigarette and then ground it out, defiantly, on the Death card.
The master of the Cult of the Curse paced, leisurely about the chamber, with a pronounced limp. He paused before a blazer, that sat upon a waist-high, marble pillar. He passed a hand over the flames and they burned blue. He then peered into the flames, his beautiful features thoughtful.
“So, they come. “He snapped his fingers and a thin man, garbbed in a grey, tattered robe slunk out of the shadows.
“Lord?”
“Gather the Cursed. We are going to have visitors. Then gather the relics. It is time.”
To Be Continued....
Author’s Notes: First, the apology. Sorry, not only is this issue late, but it’s kind of on the short side. While I’ve had fun writing these characters, I don’t feel I’ve got the best grip on the story.
Real life keeps distracting me from my writing and this story seems to be the one that gets lost in the shuffle.
For my legion of fans reading this (both of you) I hope to pull it all together and give the grand finale the energy and attention it deserves.